NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans are determined to be something different this year.

With DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry operating as a Thunder-and-Thunder backfield, they want to be a run-first, smash-mouth team.

Can that duo, behind a revamped line with a new, physical mentality, make running sexy again?

“If you look at Chance Warmack, nothing we can do is sexy with him on the line,” left tackle Taylor Lewan said of the Titans' big-bellied right guard. “I think our backs can make running sexy again. They’ve done a good job. We’re just the guys here for them to make us look good.

“Everyone calls this a passing league, and we’re going to pride ourselves on run the ball. If that’s throwback, then that’s what it is, man. But I think that’s the way football should be.”

The Titans traded very little to add Murray and managed to trim his contract some. They are determined to use him the way the Cowboys did in 2014, when as a downhill guy he led the league in rushing yards rather than the way the Eagles did in 2015, when he qualified as a free-agent bust.

“I feel like the coaches do a great job at putting us in position to make plays,” Murray said. “I think they are definitely using my strengths, and all the other playmakers' strengths, to make some great plays for us, get us in good positions.”

Drafting Henry in the second round, 45th overall, ensured the team has two physical, downhill backs and can be what Mike Mularkey craves.

“This is what I’ve always believed in, physical play,” Mularkey said. “Go back to me coaching the tight ends in my first job in the NFL or my O-line at Concordia College, I had five guys who weren’t on scholarship and made no money, weren’t millionaires, they just liked football. If you go back and ask those guys, I’m saying the same thing to this team as I said to those five. This is how I believe you can win games.”

That vision paired up nicely with what new general manager Jon Robinson saw as a bit of a market inefficiency.

“I think it’s a little bit of supply and demand,” he said. “With college offenses being more spread now, and less emphasis placed on a downhill running attack, a power running attack and being more of a zone, cut-back because you can play faster, I think the supply of guys is not as high as it has maybe as it has been 10, 12, 15 years ago.”

“So when you can get two guys like DeMarco and Derrick, it allows you to capitalize on the lack of supply with two really good players. Stylistically, that really fits what we want to be about. That style of football team: A downhill, power-running team.”

The passing league has created a premium on nickel defenses, which sub out at least one smaller player who can run in pass coverage for one bigger one who can hit close to the line of scrimmage.

In Tennessee, the Titans think they will be able to bully and bowl-over nickel people with their big backs -- Murray is 6-feet, 217-pounds; Henry is an enormous 6-3, 247.

The Titans are going to run because they want to seek balance, not to cover up for an incapable quarterback. Marcus Mariota has a reliable tight end in Delanie Walker and a new stable of receivers including Tajae Sharpe, Rishard Matthews and Andre Johnson.

The work of the running backs can also help Mariota as a runner.

Murray and Henry’s carries can set up play-action, which should make Mariota’s work easier. We have to see, however, how a quarterback who’s been at his best out of shotgun plays starts out under center a lot more.

“We’re trying to make it smash mouth, but the league has evolved and it’s more of a passing game now, not much running game,” Henry said. “But you still need good running backs to have a great team.”

Both Mularkey, who’s connected to Pittsburgh, and Robinson, who is not, point to the Steelers when looking back to the best of smash mouth.

“It’s a Chuck Noll philosophy,” said Mularkey who played for the legendary Steelers coach for the last three seasons of his 22-year career. “Maybe it is throwback, but that’s what I believe in. Call it what you want, it’s just playing physical football.

“Sure the league has changed. When you have the quarterbacks in the league today with the Bradys and the Rodgers, it’s going to give you the appearance that’s what it is. When all is said and done and those guys are in the playoffs, they all can run the football.”

Asked for the most recent example of smash mouth in the league, Robinson rolled it around in his head for a bit.

“In Pittsburgh, when they had Jerome Bettis, they were a pretty physical team,” he said before another long pause. “The Giants back in the day. And they did it some with Brandon Jacobs.

“I like the fact we can hand it to those two guys and there is some game management if you can control the clock. When you can do that, it helps you defensively. When a defense can’t figure out how to stop it, that’s -- I don’t want to say demoralizing. They’re just scratching their head. They keep trying and keep trying and keep trying and they can’t do it. They’ve tried everything. That makes the offense feel real good, it makes the defense feel real good because they want to go get the ball back to hammer some more.”

If it pans out the way the Titans have sketched it out, maybe Warmack’s belly will actually be part of making smash mouth sexy again.